Wednesday, March 28, 2007

1. Do a serious self-assessment (such as "What are your specific strengths as a vocalist?")2. Write out your five-year goal and your shorter-term benchmarking goals.3. Research! (that means, USE THE LIBRARY!)4. Think like an entrepreneur.

For the full text of the article by Angela Myles Beeching, see the April, 2007 issue of Classical Singer.

Are you looking for life on the island? Palm trees swaying in a tropical breeze, sun rays across your face and free, public domain digitized music?? Look no further. Your Cabana-Boy and Cabana-Girl Music Librarians around the country are ready to serve you! Check out The Sheet Music Consortium . The Sheet Music Consortium is a group of libraries working toward the goal of building an open collection of digitized sheet music using the Open Archives Initiative:Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI:PMH).

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Unless you're a singer, and an opera singer at that, you've probably never run across the German word "Fach." A Fach is a classification of a singer's voice and physical appearance. Whether you're a Lyric mezzo , a spinto tenor or a basso cantabile, you'll enjoy this site. Additionally, you'll find IPA links and more. It's a treasure chest for singers!

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Bad news: The music business is packed with hidden agendas. Good news: There’s one indispensable guide that helps songwriters, musicians, executives, lawyers, and managers understand the music business and travel its shark-infested waters safely and confidently. What They’ll Never Tell You About the Music Business. The new, fully revised edition presents more priceless insider information, updated for today’s music scene, plus clear explanations and advice on the new transparency in agreements, the impact of agent-artist agreements, new webcasting opportunities, changes in copyright law, royalty limits, and all the other developments in law and technology, plus advice for songwriters, A&R people, and artists, and much, much more. Packed with real-world ideas and tips, What They’ll Never Tell You About the Music Business, is the must-have guide for creative types and business types--everyone who works in the music industry.

Thursday, March 8, 2007

Ralph Gleason's 1960s Jazz Casual series was one of the high points of televised jazz. The San Francisco jazz writer and Rolling Stone magazine paterfamilias presented the best jazz musicians across a range of styles in a respectful, relaxed setting, and spent a few minutes of almost every show conversing intelligently with his guest star. And what fantastic musicians. In this set you can hear and see, at length, John Coltrane and his great quartet; Sonny Rollins and his quartet; the blues singer Jimmy Rushing talking, singing and accompanying himself on piano; Dizzy Gillespie; Count Basie in a very relaxed piano set; the great traditional cornetist Muggsy Spanier with a group including bassist Pops Foster and Chicago pianist Joe Sullivan; an entire set of Joe Sullivan playing solo piano; the Woody Herman Big Band; altoist Art Pepper; blues singer Jimmy Witherspoon with an accompanying group including Ben Webster; and lots more in 8 discs.